March is the cruelest month above the Mason-Dixon Line. It teases us with the breath of Spring from time to time, and then blasts us with more snow and cold winds. It’s a time of year that can drive a golfer to fits of lunacy… like imagining what it would be like to be King of Golf.
I don’t mean imagining what it would be like to “the King,” Arnie (in the day, that had to be a blast), or golf’s current king, Tiger (I suspect that wouldn’t suck, either). No, I mean, what would I change about golf, if I could change anything I wanted to.
Naturally, I want to reverse my handicap. Go from my -9 to a +9, and see what the PGA Tour is really all about. But that’s too easy. Everyone would want to do the same thing. I’m more concerned with the bigger questions of golf. Here are five things that, with tongue more or less in cheek, I’d like to see changed about golf.
Hole Five: No More Freebies for Millionaires
Never going to happen… But how much more interesting would bag counts be if pros had to buy their own equipment? I suspect there would be some strange things show up in pro bags if they could play any club they thought would help them with no impact on their sponsorship dollars.
As it is, most players who are sponsored by an equipment manufacturer have to fill the bag with their sponsor’s clubs, or at least mostly. Some players will go with a putter of their choice or maybe an odd hybrid or wedge, but the core of their equipment will come from the company that signs their regular checks, not the ones that they may or may not win each week on tour.
If players bought their own equipment and scores of them showed up at the Masters with the same brand, that would certainly tell average golfers a little bit about that brand of clubs. Not to mention that there’d be a serious run on them in every pro shop around the country.
I’m not sure even the King of Golf could make this one happen. Sponsorships have been part of the game for nearly 100 years, possibly longer. But wouldn’t it be cool to know what pros really think about their clubs?
Hole Four: Let Joe Play for Dough
Building on the success of the U.S. Open contests that let an amateur play the course with celebrities, why not take it a step farther. If I were in charge of golf, one local average Joe golfer would get an exemption into each PGA Tour event. Choose them via lottery or through a series of qualifying tourneys… Just don’t let the sponsors choose one of their execs to play. Not only that, why not let them play with full handicap and keep any money won?
With the stress of playing in front of galleries and TV cameras, a win by the local Joe would be few and far between. Imagine the pressure coming down the stretch for somebody who usually plays munis. I have a feeling there wouldn’t be a whole lot of cash going to Joe Schmoes, but every once in a while there’d be some real excitement for a local guy.
It wouldn’t fly at the wannabe-fifth-major events, but for some of the smaller struggling events, it might actually work to add a little more interest. The pros would hate it, but it would provide an angle for the networks to cover when there was a runaway leader on the weekend.
Hole Three: Going to the Mat
Why can’t someone make a realistic mat that ranges could afford to install? It would be nice for those of us in cold climates to have something decent to hit off of in the winter. They would also be useful for high traffic areas or as alternate range tees for bad weather in warmer climes.
And while we’re at it, why do mat manufacturers insist on those rubber tees that are like nothing you actually use in golf. How hard would it be to make a rubber holder for a regular tee, so you could use your preferred tee? That’s a freebie idea for a manufacturer out there.
I’ve actually taken to sticking a tee into the gap between the rubber tee and the rubber matting. This works about half the time. When it doesn’t I wad paper into the rubber tee or the hole for the tee and stick a real tee into that.
Hole Two: I’m Tiger Woods
From now on, every time you shoot a personal best or make another landmark accomplishment, you’ll earn credits that you can spend later on new equipment or swing enhancements that will help improve your game further, just like in the Tiger Woods PGA Tour game. Break 80, get a new putter! Make an eagle, upgrade your driving distance!
Just think how it would help the economy… The more holes you play, the more likely you are to earn credits. I know guys who’d be single-handedly bailing out the golf course industry.
OK, I’d have to be a god of golf to make that one happen, but it would sure be fun.
Hole One: Stroke, But Not Distance
The stroke and distance penalty slows down play and is overly harsh when compared to other penalties.
Hit a ball into a lake and you have several options for where to play it, including dropping within two club lengths of the spot where it last crossed the hazard line and dropping anywhere behind that spot on a line that extends to the hole.
Lose a drive in some long rough and, if you didn’t hit a provisional, you have to hike yourself back to the tee to hit your third shot. Same thing if you hit it out of bounds. Why should these instances be penalized so much more than when a ball finds water or other marked hazard?
I can kind of buy the out of bounds penalty… Hitting a ball into someone’s patio or, worse, their house is something that should be discouraged. But a lost ball, outside of a hazard, is penalized more than a ball lost inside a hazard. Where’s the logic to that?
When I’m King of Golf (vote early and often!), in addition to the option of returning to the point of your previous shot (stroke and distance), you would also have the option of determining (with your opponent) the spot where your ball should have been found. You can then take a drop (with penalty) anywhere behind that spot on a line extending through the hole. To me, that’s the common sense penalty. You’re still hitting three, but now you might have a chance of getting up and down on a par four like you would if you splashed one off the tee.
What would you change about the game if you were King?
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I would like mats that can easily be adapted for lefty’s at the range
If I were king…..
1) I would institute a policy of having referees on every hole, on every course, nationwide. Anyone committing a golf foul, the ref runs out of the bushes, pointing them out while blowing a whistle, then ejects them from the course. Smoking cigars, yell “you the man”, answering cell phones, not fixing ball marks or divots, playing too slow, not letting people play through, and checking the wind with thrown up handfulls of grass while being a 30 handicapper would all net an immediate ejection.
2) Beverage cart girls would have to be hot. Period. (I had one at a golf course that looked like she drove the cart between shifts at the waffle house. She said, “what’s up?” and we replied, ” Not a damn thing!”)
3) You can bring one child each for free, providing they have a set of clubs and play at least half of the holes. BUT, keep in mind that if they act up you as well as them are subject to spankings by any other golfer they disturb.
4) Unless you are handicapped, you have to walk. No exceptions.
Finally, as King of Golf, I hereby appoint Natalie Gulbis my queen, Augusta my home course, John Daly my royal drinking buddy, and Butch Harmon as my high council.
Hole One: Stroke, But Not Distance
Could not agree with you more on this one. I’ve never understood the rule and I do think it slows down play.
In regards to hole 3, the Golfsmith here in Indianapolis has mats that have a regular tee that protrudes from the rubber sleeve.
Therefore, you can actually adjust tee height as well as hit off a real tee. (side note: it actually looks very similar to the one you’ve pictured except that it is dual-sided so lefties can jump on too).
I just assumed this was standard equipment at all Golfsmith stores.
While I wouldn’t be spending the next few days and nights debating the pros and cons of your first four moves as ‘king of golf’, the last one was something I found very interesting. It has always baffled me how someone hitting a wayward tee shot into a water hazard that shouldn’t even have been in contention in the first place gets lesser penalty than someone hitting the ball out of bounds or just loses the ball while trying to take an aggressive line. It beats me, like you have very rightly pointed out, how no one seems to find it silly that hitting into the hazard might result in lesser penalty than hitting some place which is in play. And I have as much sympathy for the guy hitting the ball out of bounds as I would have for someone losing the ball in the long grass. There shouldn’t be varying degrees of a bad shot, at least not where the rule of law is supreme.
Oh, and if I were a pro-shop owner, I would already be clasping my hands in anticipation of seeing Tiger Woods walk into the shop and try and buy something off the rack. Wouldn’t it be fun if they lost their equipment sponsors and they had to run to the local pro-shop to get all the stuff!
I’m fine with stroke and distance for lost balls, and here’s why.
The Rules of Golf don’t have many grey areas. You’re suggesting that people “agree” to where the ball would be. But if you can agree to the area where the ball would be (presumably to within an area of about 25 square yards), why couldn’t you just find the ball to begin with?
In other words, any area small enough to be “agreeable” should also be small enough an area to find your ball to begin with.
And even within that 25 square yard area, would your ball likely be right behind or against a tree or bush, or right out there in the open?
How many times have we been looking for our golf ball only to find it 40 yards from where we think it was because it hit a tree or something?
No, I’ll stick with the Rules the way they are, with stroke and distance for lost balls. Hit a provisional (free practice swing!) and do yourself and your buddies a favor and watch their golf balls for ’em.
I became aware of players playing non-sponsor clubs last year at the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. We were right on the ropes as Jim Furyk took his Srixon headcover off and revealed a Titleist driver. I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation between Furyk and Srixon.
Erik you make a good point, but most of the time no one hits a provisional because they have no idea the ball may be lost. I have had balls land in the fariway and not be found. Don’t get me started on leaves. And some courses have blind tee shots. We depend on honor and integrity for many of our golf decisions, why is perfect knowledge required here. If your playing partners let you get away with calling a ball headed behind obstacles lost, then neither of you is a real golfer and you probably aren’t playing by the rules anyway. Actually I lose very few balls, I have learned, sadly, that usually I haven’t hit it as far as I think I have, so back towards the tee is where my ball is.
That’s a bit different. Some (most, perhaps?) club contracts are written so that the player only has to play 10 or 12 of the company’s clubs, leaving them room to play a different putter, driver, hybrid, or some wedges. The “full-line” or “full-set” contract is somewhat rare, particularly among the better/more famous players who don’t want to be hemmed in with under-performing equipment.
If you don’t hit a provisional, I dunno, shame on you? What do you want to do – change a rule just because people are sometimes lazy or forgetful? This is a rule only the serious golfer follows anyway. Most just drop where they think their ball should be and play on.
Perfect knowledge is required for the reasons I outlined. The ball could behind (or up) a tree. Or in a bush. Or 75 yards away from where you think it is. It’s also not the same as a hazard because you can almost always tell where a ball enters a hazard to within a small amount. The rules even say that you must be certain a ball is even in the hazard. But determining where the ball should be within even 250 square yards after it bounces and careens off countless trees? Why? The solution is so simple: try to keep your eye on the ball and hit a provisional when necessary.
Golf is a game of honor and integrity, but it’s also not a game of opinions and uncertainty. Allowing people to drop wherever they think their ball should be opens a huge can of worms that would probably lead to people fighting. Because again, if you’re that certain your ball is in the general area where you’d like to drop, why can’t you find it? The fact that it’s lost would kind of disprove the opinion that “it should be right about here.”
All that said, the comments here aren’t the place to really get into a back-and-forth type of discussion, so post your thoughts in this forum thread I’ve started. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of agreement with your take, but the Rules aren’t a popularity contest, either.
“THE Golf Mat” (the one flogged by Vijay) uses a rubber holder for a regular tee. It works really well, too.
The funny thing is, from the outside it looks just like one of those el-cheapo rubber tees they use at countless driving ranges. However rather than being a hollow tube, it’s actually filled with close fitting nubs on the inside. You just push a tee down into them, and they hold it tight.
I think it would be at least a start if driving ranges made a small investment and began replacing tees with these things when their old fashioned rubber ones wear out. The mats themselves might still be horrific to hit from, but at least we could get a more reasonable approximation of game conditions with our tee shots then.
With regards to the rubber tees, I have a piece that goes into the rubber tee slot and allows you to insert your own tee. I don’t know the name of it offhand, and it was given to me, so I don’t know where to buy one. But I can insert both regular tees and the ZF tees into it and hit even my driver just fine at the range.
There is a company called Don Martin or something like that sells a rubber 1 – 1/4” tee that’s designed to hold a normal tee. They are sold in 3 packs for cheap. I always buy them for friends and they love them.
Maybe I should send some into the Sand Trap for a review hahahaha
Regarding Hole #3, my club (Cedar Point, Suffolk, VA) has mats that feature a small hole where you can insert your own tee. (These mats are used in winter and wet weather,)
A couple more holes please:
1) The PGA Tour should allow shorts.
2) Once per side your opponent would be allowed to move your ball to any spot within 5 yards of where it came to rest. In a bunker, water, behind a tree, etc.
👿 I’d have a big sign at the first tee that sez “This is not a foot race. If you have a dinner date in four hours, go play horseshoes. Play by the rules. The group in front of you that you just hit into is armed. Enjoy your round, chill, and be nice to the rangers and cart girls.”
How about a free drop from a divot in the fairway? Nothing I hate more than to finally hit a good drive into the middle and then to walk up and find my ball in a hole about the size of a dinner plate. Why not have the rule read that a true divot is to be treated as a temporarily unplayable lie, if all competitors agree, or play as it lies if not. You can remind your competitor that what goes around comes around so he better be realistic in his rulings. 😡
No one commented directly to your hole #2 suggestion above.
By far it’s my favorite. Not sure how it could be implemented, but it sure would be cool.
As to #1, I think I agree with your rule change suggestion, but as an alternative, why can’t there be a way to make ball finding easier? Maybe cameras strategically placed on the course to help golfers ‘see’ where the ball went, a golf ball radar/sonar, etc.
Re: Hole #5 I think it’d be interesting to do an anonymous survey of golf pro’s and ask them what they’d play IF they had the choice.
Zinger has gone away from the Nike sponsorship he had previously and is now deal-less this year. He has collected a mix of clubs and the irons are his old Mizuno’s (they are considered the golfers iron of choice – arne’t they?).
Be fascinated to know – under the cloud of secrecy – what they’d really choose.
Surely there is a way to do this – and have them save face?
Any media outlets able to do this?
This post and comments made my night. Here I am still researching a post on Srixon golf balls at 4:51 a.m. and found my way here. This is so entertaining I shared it not once but TWICE at Twitter.
Since someone brought up the rules of golf I hope you’ll come visit the post I published yesterday on The Rules of Golf. I’ve linked in the major online rule books, videos, animations, decisions, and much more and would love some feedback on how useful – or not – golfers find that type of post.